The speculation and anticipation regarding who will join Mitt Romney on the Republican ticket ended Saturday morning. Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Here are a few facts on Ryan:

42-years-old

The fourth child in a Roman Catholic family from Janesville, Wisconsin

Earned a degree in economics and political science from Ohio’s Miami University

Married attorney, Janna Little, in 2000

They have three children Elizabeth (Liza) Anne, Charles Wilson and Samuel Lowery

U.S. Representative for Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district since 1998

Champion of reduced government spending

Chairman of the House Budget Committee

Known for his government-slashing budget proposals

Many thought Romney would go the safe route and choose a “boring, old, white guy.” Instead he has invigorated the party by adding Ryan – a man who is theposter child for reducing the size of government while insisting on fiscal responsibility. He’s someone who wishes to repeal Obamacare and rework Medicare before it becomes insolvent. He knows what this election is all about – it’s about the economy. We continue to suffer through the longest stretch of 8% or higher unemployment since the Great Depression. It’s about a federal debt crisis that is quickly approaching 16 trillion which breaks down to owing around $200,000 for every person living in the US. Consider what your family’s finances would look like if you handled them the way our government handles its budget. It is unsustainable. Every other problem, issue, political talking point – is secondary.

President Obama, and too many like him in Washington, have refused to make difficult decisions because they are more worried about their next election than they are about the next generation. We might have been able to get away with that before, but not now. We’re in a different, and dangerous, moment. We’re running out of time — and we can’t afford 4 more years of this…I hear some people say that this is just “the new normal.” High unemployment, declining incomes and crushing debt is not a new normal. It’s the result of misguided policies.

While Obama campaigned with Sandra Fluke last week, trying to reignite their campaign-created war on women, the Romney camp was preparing their VP unveiling. Being the night owl I am, I heard the news late Friday night. I checked Ryan’s Twitter account to see if he was hinting at the upcoming announcement. He wasn’t. But I did notice he has thousands of followers but only follows one person. His wife? Romney? No. He follows @nationaldebt.

He’s nothing, if not focused. And I like that.

Are you also happy with Romney’s choice?

Please visit my colleague, Amy Bradley-Hole, as she blogs about politics from a liberal point of view.

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Paul Ryan has already been demonized for his supposed plan to eliminate Medicare. Here’s the best response I have heard on that per Noel Sheppard.

“If you don’t have a plan to fix Medicare, you will destroy it. If you don’t have a budget you will go bankrupt.”

Current administration has neither.

Democrats are turning against Ryan over Medicare, when Obamacare eliminate $700 billion from Medicare and takes 52 billion from Social Security. Dems have already revamped entitlements. They just didn’t tell anyone because the end result is for these programs to go broke that much sooner.

Ryan worked with liberal dem senator Wyden to develop a plan to revamp and save Medicare, and David Axelrod of the Obama campaign slammed Wyden (the lib. Dem from Oregon) for doing that.

This isn’t the first time the democrats have stabbed Wyden in the back. He had a plan for HCR (that conservatives hated to be honest) that had republican cosponsers, but the Obama administration and leading dems decided they wanted to get the most partisan plan through the Senate they could using their veto proof majority.

Ryan is a great pick. I hate to see how he will be portrayed by the left. He is a fiscal conservative. He is very smart. He is also a baby wearing dad from a picture I saw from years ago. Ryan is willing to look seriously at the issues our country faces.

While some have cast Ryan’s budget proposal as drastic—they don’t balance the budget until the middle of this century. That doesn’t sound drastic to me.

For all the calls of how Ryan is so partisan. The district that keeps electing him to represent them, supported Obama in 2008. If Ryan is that far off the right, than it seems to me that district would have replaced him by now.

shirley

“Romney chooses Paul Ryan to be country’s next VP”?? Not much putting the cart before the horse around here, is there? They have to win in order for him to the the country’s next VP.

shirley

To BE the country’s next VP. Dammit, I ruined my own semi-clever comment. Go on and mock me, I can take it.

May Saubier

I may sometimes mock a politician but never a BabyCenter reader. Unless you also happen to be a politician. Then you’re fair game.

JC

I was surprised by the choice, and have to learn more about him, but am all for someone finally treating the government’s budget in a manner like I budget my household – not spending what I don’t have.

Christine

What a great choice! I am thrilled to hear about saving our economy and our country. Run the country the way a household should be run – budget, budget, budget. Don’t spend more than you earn. And that can mean some hard choices but what is the alternative – bankrupcy?

Maya

Wow, very partisan and completely irrelevant to anything babycenter. I voted McCain last time and am undecided now, btw, but I still find this post slanted and inappropriate. I don’t come here for political ads.

Jessica

The title of this post is awfully presumptuous.

Ryan would be terrible for this country, under his tax plan, Romney would only have paid .82% in taxes. How is that going to help? We’ve already learned that “trickle down” economics don’t work, so why try more of the same? A government isn’t supposed to be run like a business, or a household. This post just shows how truly ignorant many ordinary citizens are of how governments works.

BBC needs to stick to babies.

HappyHippie

That is quite an optimistic title, seeing as there hasn’t been an election yet.

There is no such thing as a “revenue neutral” tax cut, and there is no way that their undefined tax plan, which magically cuts taxes (for rich people, anyway) yet reduces the deficit, can work. There are not enough loopholes that can be closed, using real math, to make up the deficit. Ending deductions for charitable contributions is going to balance the budget? Puhleeze. Offloading Medicaid onto states will drop 14 MILLION people from coverage, which will end up costing all of us more as they seek emergency care from hospitals, seeing as the health care reform act will be abolished as well. These guys are running on a platform of vague promises, yet provide no detail or actual math. They haven’t even gone as far as George Bush did when he submitted his tax cut plan to Congress before the 2000 election, in a time of budgetary surplus. The emperor is wearing no clothes, people. Turn off Fox News and take a long hard look at the real world. What you see might surprise you.

Julius

Happy Hippie: Erksine Bowles, has been a prominant budget expert for democrats and was appointed by Obama to his deficit task force, has called the Ryan plan sensible and honest. does that in anyway affect your POV about the Ryan plan?

there is video out there of Bowles saying this. I won’t link it because it ties up the replies.

Also, in early days of this country there was press that presented one side and some press that presented the other side. You had to look at both sides to figure it out. Now we seem to have decided that only Fox news is biased and the rest of our press is not, but look at the facts:

NBC: selectively edited video to misrepresent George Zimmerman’s dialogue with 911 operator
CBS: did a special on a fake memo concerning George W Bush right before the election
ABC; Linked a tea partier to the Aurora shootings hours after the event simply because he shared the same name as the shooter–imagine what that was like for his family.

Also notice the many democrat former staffers that work for new organization. George Stephanoplous worked in the Clinton administration and we are supposed to take his POV as unbiased new and go after Fox. That doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, I hope you seriously look at what Obama’s appointee said about the Ryan budget, and rest assured, conservatives aren’t all that happy with it and would like to go further.

Margaret

This political pairing frightens me, I really hope Obama wins for the sake of America.

Anna T.

This title sounds a bit presumptuous.

Julius

What is so frightening about Romney and Ryan?

Christine

Thank goodness! I am thrilled about Ryan. His grasp of the terrible situation the United States is in will certainly help in solving the country’s economic problems. You can’t spend money you don’t have. If I ran my household the way the Democrats run the government, I would be bankrupt. Let’s reign in our spending so our children will have a reasonable future.

Michelle M

I am ecstatic!!! I LOVE Paul Ryan, and believe he is exaclty the type of running mate Romney needs. Ryan is a TRUE fiscal conservative; and is the only person in Washington to come up with a truly bi-partisan plan to begin to fix this nightmare the Obama adminsitration has put us in.

I even have a catchy campaign slogan if none of their own folks have thought of it yet … “What our country needs to recover from the past four years is a good dose of R&R!”

Michelle M

And to all the people who want to slam and criticize for Mitt introducing him as the country’s “next VP” …. look back at any political campaigns over the course of your life. Campaigns are ALWAYS presented in a “when I win, this is what I will do” manner. It’s par for the course with politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle. Clearly you don’t like Romney’s choice, but mincing words over his optimistic introduction is just beyond petty.

Julius

Actually Michelle M. Obama freely discussed his plans to have a basketball court in the White House well before he was elected President. I don’t think the people that object to Romney introducing Ryan as the next VP would have noticed it.

what is with the captchas only showing half the word???

Michelle M

Julius – you are so right … just as it is with everything else, the Dems can do everything short of murder someone in the street and get away with it, but heaven help us if a Republican dares to use the wrong tense when talking about a hypothetical situation!

83 days and counting!!!!!

P.S. – you’re right about the captchas … I’ve been off the BC site for a few weeks with some personal stuff going on, and they look super weird/hard to read to me now.

“two men who will destroy poor america”, because having 1 in 6 americans below the poverty line is something we want–Poverty rates of increased under Obama. Over 100 million on welfare under Obama. Food stamp usage is at all time high under Obama.

Interesting. If a political party has to count on class warfare and the idea of “destroying the poor”, than wouldn’t they want more poor people so they can count on more voters?

I mean if people with money won’t vote for you, than the best thing to do is keep the people poor and give them just enough to survive. Sounds like a winning plan for permanent power. Take away our prosperity so we must depend on you.

Tracie: Thanks for helping us make that important point.

Michelle M

Yes, we all know that Russell Simmons is a political force to be reckoned with, and he is OBVIOUSLY completely non-partisan as he’s clearly called out Obama on his numerous failures for the past four years … (that’s sarcasm lest anyone think I am being serious). Thanks for the great insight, Tracie.

THIS is what terrifies me about politics today. People who will not take the time to truly educate themselves with the facts of an issue, but will blindly accept something written by a biased CELEBRITY as gospel and final truth.

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